Chapter 3 - The Night Arthur DiedThe judge dismissed the jury for the day.
What followed was no longer a normal murder trial.
It became an investigation happening in real time.
Sophie gave a recorded statement.
She had been at the Mercer estate on the night Arthur died.
Nobody knew.
Hannah brought her secretly.
Arthur planned to announce Sophie's identity to the family the following morning.
He wanted one private evening with his granddaughter first.
At 7:40 p.m., I arrived.
Arthur and I drank tea.
Sophie remained in the upstairs guest room because Arthur said he was not ready for Daniel to see her.
At 8:15, Arthur began complaining of chest pain.
I called for help.
Victoria arrived first.
Daniel seconds later.
An ambulance came.
Arthur died before reaching hospital.
Police quickly focused on me.
The poison.
The tea.
The inheritance.
Everything looked simple.
Too simple.
Sophie had watched from the staircase.
“What did you see?” Detective Lena Torres asked.
Sophie squeezed Hannah's hand.
“Grandma went into Grandpa's study.”
“When?”
“Before Grace came.”
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
“Did she carry anything?”
“A little bottle.”
My skin went cold.
The digitalis vial.
The one later found in my bathroom.
Rebecca asked:
“What happened after Arthur became sick?”
“Everybody was yelling.”
“Daniel?”
“He went upstairs.”
“Where?”
“To my room.”
“Did he know you were there?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“He searched Grandpa's jacket.”
“For what?”
“The phone.”
Sophie had already taken it.
Arthur told her to hide it.
Daniel then searched drawers.
When Sophie accidentally made a sound, he opened the closet.
She hid behind hanging coats.
Daniel did not see her.
“What did he say?”
Sophie swallowed.
“He was on his phone.”
“To whom?”
“Grandma.”
“What did he say?”
She looked toward me.
“He said, ‘It's gone. Grace must have it.’”
Rebecca sat back.
That explained everything.
They believed I possessed Arthur's evidence.
So after his death, they searched my home.
And planted the poison vial.
The next question:
How?
The prosecution's forensic report said my fingerprints were on the vial.
I had never seen it.
But Arthur's home had dozens of small glass medicine bottles.
Hannah remembered something.
“Three weeks before Arthur died, Victoria asked Grace to organize his heart medications.”
I remembered.
Arthur had been recovering from pneumonia.
Victoria placed several bottles on the kitchen counter.
I touched every one.
Including, apparently, the bottle later used to contain digitalis.
Rebecca whispered:
“They preloaded your fingerprints.”
I felt sick.
This was not a spontaneous framing.
It had been prepared.
Weeks earlier.
Which meant Arthur's death had been planned.
Daniel requested an attorney.
So did Victoria.
Neither spoke again voluntarily.
Prosecutors asked the judge for a continuance.
My attorney asked for immediate release.
Whitaker objected.
Rebecca nearly exploded.
“Your Honor, the state's entire theory has collapsed!”
Judge Porter agreed.
My bail was reinstated.
After four months in custody, I walked outside.
Cameras exploded.
Reporters screamed.
“Grace!”
“Did Daniel kill his father?”
“Did Victoria poison Arthur?”
“Who is Sophie?”
I said nothing.
Rebecca put me into a car.
Sophie sat inside.
She looked at me nervously.
“Are you mad?”
“At you?”
She nodded.
“Why would I be?”
“Because Grandpa left you with all this.”
I laughed.
Then cried.
“No, sweetheart.”
She looked toward the courthouse.
“Where do I go?”
That question mattered more than every reporter outside.
Emily was dead.
Arthur was dead.
Victoria and Daniel were suspects.
Hannah had been hiding Sophie for weeks but lacked legal guardianship.
Rebecca looked at me.
I knew what she was asking.
My husband might have helped frame me for murder.
His mother might have poisoned Arthur.
And their secret niece needed somewhere safe.
I looked at Sophie.
“You come home with me.”
Her eyes widened.
“Really?”
“Temporarily.”
Rebecca raised an eyebrow.
“Grace.”
“What?”
“Maybe stop making life-changing legal arrangements without consulting your lawyer.”
I almost smiled.
“You'd hate being my lawyer if I became reasonable.”
That night Sophie slept in the room Daniel used as his private office.
I found that appropriate.
Then at 2:13 a.m., the home alarm activated.
Someone entered through the garage.
I called police.
Sophie woke.
We locked ourselves inside my bedroom.
Footsteps moved downstairs.
Then stopped.
By the time police arrived, whoever entered was gone.
Nothing had been taken.
Except Arthur's phone charger.
Not the phone.
Rebecca had already placed that in police evidence.
On the kitchen counter, the intruder left a handwritten note.
THE CHILD IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.
Underneath:
SEND HER AWAY.
Sophie saw it.
Her face turned white.
I tore the note in half.
“No.”
“What?”
“You're not going anywhere.”
She stared.
“What if they come back?”
I looked toward the police lights outside.
“Then they'll discover I'm much harder to scare when I'm not wearing county-issued shoes.”
Sophie smiled.
May you like
Barely.
But she smiled.
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